Michael Specter: The danger of science denial

マイケル・スペクター: 科学を否定することは危険

Michael Specter - WriterMichael Specter is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book, Denialism, asks why we have increasingly begun to fear scientific advances instead of embracing them. Full bio

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Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

Let's pretend right here we have a machine.

ここに機械があるとしましょう

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A big machine, a cool, TED-ish machine,

大型で かっこよい TED 的な機械です

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and it's a time machine.

それはタイムマシンです

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And everyone in this room has to get into it.

ここにいる皆さんに 乗って頂きます

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And you can go backwards, you can go forwards;

過去にも未来にも行けますが

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you cannot stay where you are.

現在に留まることはできません

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And I wonder what you'd choose, because I've been asking my friends

どちらに行きますか？ 最近たくさんの友人に

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this question a lot lately and they all want to go back.

この質問をすると みんな過去に戻りたいと言います

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I don't know. They want to go back before there were automobiles

なぜか 自動車、ツイッター、アメリカン アイドルがなかった

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or Twitter or "American Idol."

そんな時代に戻りたがります

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I don't know.

なぜでしょうね

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I'm convinced that there's some sort of pull

郷愁を誘うとか

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to nostalgia, to wishful thinking.

そう思わせる何かがあるのでしょう

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And I understand that.

でも私は

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I'm not part of that crowd, I have to say.

そんな人たちとは違うと 言わざるを得ません

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I don't want to go back, and it's not because I'm adventurous.

過去には戻りたくありません 私が冒険好きだからではなく

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It's because possibilities on this planet,

後退などせず 前進していく --

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they don't go back, they go forward.

この惑星の可能性を信じているからです

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So I want to get in the machine, and I want to go forward.

だからタイムマシンで前に進みたいのです

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This is the greatest time there's ever been on this planet

現在こそ この惑星のこれまでで最良の時代です

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by any measure that you wish to choose:

どんなモノサシを選んでもです

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health, wealth,

健康 富

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mobility, opportunity,

移動の自由 チャンス

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declining rates of disease ...

病気にかかりにくい

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There's never been a time like this.

こんな時代は他にありません

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My great-grandparents died, all of them,

ひいおじいさんの世代はみな

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by the time they were 60.

60歳までに亡くなりました

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My grandparents pushed that number to 70.

おじいさんの世代は70歳まで延び

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My parents are closing in on 80.

両親は80歳に近づきつつあります

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So there better be

私の寿命は90の大台に乗ることも

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a nine at the beginning of my death number.

考えられます

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But it's not even about people like us,

でも我々以外に

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because this is a bigger deal than that.

もっと大きな影響を受けている人たちがいます

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A kid born in New Delhi today

今日 ニューデリーに生まれる子供の寿命は

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can expect to live as long as

100年前の世界で

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the richest man in the world did 100 years ago.

一番のお金持ちと同じです

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Think about that, it's an incredible fact.

考えてみて下さい 信じられないことです

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And why is it true?

どうしてそうなったのか

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Smallpox. Smallpox killed billions

天然痘です この惑星では何十億人も

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of people on this planet.

天然痘で亡くなってきました

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It reshaped the demography of the globe

どんな戦争で失われる人の数よりも

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in a way that no war ever has.

遥かに大きく人口を左右しました

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It's gone. It's vanished.

でもそれは無くなりました 消滅したのです

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We vanquished it. Puff.

我々が制圧したのです

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In the rich world,

豊かな国々では

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diseases that threatened millions of us just a generation ago

ひと世代前に何百万人もの命をおびやかしていた病気が

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no longer exist, hardly.

もはやほとんど無くなりました

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Diphtheria, rubella, polio ...

ジフテリアや風疹やポリオ

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does anyone even know what those things are?

これが何のことだか分かりますか？

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Vaccines, modern medicine,

ワクチンや近代的な薬や

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our ability to feed billions of people,

何十億人もの人に食糧を供給できるようになったこと

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those are triumphs of the scientific method.

これらは科学的な方法の勝利です

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And to my mind, the scientific method --

私が考える科学的な方法とは

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trying stuff out,

何かを試して 効果が出ることを確認し

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seeing if it works, changing it when it doesn't --

駄目ならやり方を変えるというもの

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is one of the great accomplishments of humanity.

これは人類の進歩を支えてきたのです

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So that's the good news.

これは良い話でした

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Unfortunately, that's all the good news

残念ながら良い話はこれでおしまいで

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because there are some other problems, and they've been mentioned many times.

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About the Speaker:

Michael Specter - WriterMichael Specter is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book, Denialism, asks why we have increasingly begun to fear scientific advances instead of embracing them.

Why you should listen

Michael Specter's new book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, dives into a worrisome strain of modern life -- a vocal anti-science bias that may prevent us from making the right choices for our future. Specter studies how the active movements against vaccines, genetically engineered food, science-based medicine and biotechnological solutions to climate change may actually put the world at risk. (For instance, anti-vaccination activists could soon trigger the US return of polio, not to mention the continuing rise of measles.) More insidiously, the chilling effect caused by the new denialism may prevent useful science from being accomplished.

Specter has been a writer for the New Yorker for more than a decade; before that, he was a science writer and then the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times. He writes about science and politics for the New Yorker, with a fascinating sideline in biographical profiles.